A Trip to Mombassa

Mombasa is the sea port of Kenya and the Nairobi - Mombasa road is main artery road with goods coming and going as well as 'normal' traffic. The road in many places is perched above the landscape as a result of erosion, and there is just room for the two lanes - outside this there is a dangerous drop. Naturally enough lorries and buses do not want to go over the edge, so did not move over at all to accommodate oncoming traffic.

We arrived safely in Mombasa.

The original town of Mombasa was on an island in the harbor and as we were heading South we entered the island by way of a very good bridge and left the island by the Likoni Ferry. It is a short crossing and everything went smoothly.

We found a place at Diani Beach, which is a very pleasant place and we found a motel owned by Marion and expat Brit who had lived there most of her life. Hazel from Birmingham was staying with her - they were long time friends.

 Marion accommodated us in a very nice motel - well, house really. Two bedrooms, a toilet/bathroom, a kitchen and dining room-cum sitting room. If there was a fault, it was the toilet wall did not go fully to the ceiling, so anyone in there could be heard and smelt from the dining room. It was a matter of saying, 'I'm going to go!' and everyone else headed outside!
But to us it was outstanding accommodation!

Wema [maybe Mwema] was assigned to us as houseboy, our cook and cleaner. A very good fellow he was too! However we did most of the cooking and each meal, even if he cooked it, he sat at our table and shared. He liked to be given money and go to the boats to buy fresh fish for us, and bring the exact change. He wasn't required to do much cleaning either. I think he had as good a time as we had!

Our bedroom window reached almost to the floor and I was surprised to spot this monitor lizard walking along the path.
They are usually killed on sight because they eat poultry and eggs and as well their bite is said to be poison.
I enjoyed my close encounter with this fellow!
Actually Mo, while lying half asleep on the couch, saw a metre plus snake slither through our bedroom door and out that low window!

There were a number of Sykes monkeys at Diani Beach and they were cheeky. I guess because tourists fed them but even so they were troublesome.
Very good at thieving food - even came inside and stole a pot of margarine and took it up to the tree-top to devour.
I always thought I would like monkeys, but I found them to wasteful and just a pest to have around.

The sand beach was pleasant but devoid of life - over exploited. However to tout sure did exploit it! At no time could I venture out onto the beach without a 'very good offer' for anything from a drink of tea to drugs or a on-the-beach massage [behind sacks].
An expat Brit patrolled the beach, he told me that he was a Tourist Policeman. He told me that one of the problem was that young women from Europe come to Mombasa looking for a sexual experience and end up HIV positive. [He put it more crudely than that!] We certainly witnessed the sexual experience part.
We did go out on an outrigger canoe to see dolphins, but they failed to appear - I would say they lacked prey. Though I did enjoy the day. And on the trip there was a young German who wore a yellow swimsuit showing more skin to our 'boatboys' than they would eve see among their own women.

We paid a tourist visit in to Mombasa and I enjoyed the experience, especially the more traditional shops.
My bent for history was satisfied by visiting Fort Jesus. The fort was built by the Portuguese over about three years, starting 1593. Principally it was built to guard the Mombasa port.

The gunsight of an old cannon - I think it would be easy to hit a passing boat. This for was won and lost nine times and the architecture change by the Omani Arabs and the British. An interesting history.
The British used Fort Jesus as a prison and was in use until 1958.

Fort Jesus now is a museum and a World Heritage Site - and worthy of the title.






A fancy door at Fort Jesus reminiscent of those on Zanzibar.

We built up a friendship with Hazel, who had her own property in the Simba Hills and she was keen to have me look at the success of her plantings. She has been instrumental in the gazetting of an Elephant reserve adjacent to her property.
She came back to Arusha with us and visited a few of our projects. We have visited her at her Birmingham home and we remain in contact.

A part of the Simba Hills where [I'm guessing] the Elephant reserve has been established.
Hazel lived quite high up the mountain amongst the rainforest.

Hazel told me that there was a spring nearby that was the 'original' water source for the town of Mombasa. This interested me and an employee of Hazel took me on a bit of a route march to find the spring.
It was situated quite high and in a rocky gulley and while water is not visible in this picture, the stream was quite strong. The scheme is not operational at all - not even for villages further down the mountain.

My guide sits on the water tank, which I guess was a holding tank for the Mombasa water supply.
For the work that has gone into this project there must be a reasonable. if overgrown track into the area but we never found it.




We wanted to go home via Lake Jipe, but there had been flooding and the road, we guesses would have been troublesome.
We headed South towards Tanga and the remarkable thing was that one of the Tanzania boarder people called himself  'Kia Ora' which a Maori  greeting. It turns out that he had heard the phrase and liked it and just called himself that name.

We enjoyed our tour to Mombasa, and Hazel returned with us for a visit to our area.

Ngarenanyuki Secondary School

The Ngarenanyuki Secondary School is situated on the main road through the area, just before the high bridge that crosses the Ngarenanyuki River.

The school has its own website now, and that probably marks the difference to the school as it was when I first visited there in 1997.

Ngarenanyuki Secondary School is a DME school and in those early days, struggled financially through the results of the Meru Crisis and the relatively recent establishment of the diocese.

Among the spiel provided by the Agency before we went to Tanzania was that only 6% of all primary school students were able to go on to attend secondary school. I have no reason to dispute this figure and happily the percentage is far higher these days.

So even though the facilities at the school were few in those earlier days, it does show that DME were forward thinking in providing the educational opportunity.

From my personal point of view, I really enjoyed seeing pupils from the various primary schools that we worked with, progress with secondary school education. Some of these pupils held responsible roles in the primary schools and I knew that they looked forward to their continued education.

That's positive!

Social demography is way beyond me, but it would be interesting to research the influences of what I noticed, as on outsider, at the school.

Ngarenanyuki is an isolated place and as such, it was a good place to send students, say from Dar es Salaam, who were 'disruptive' or worse. Of course the school would be happy to receive fees from the parents of these students because local parent probably were more tardy in their payment.

It would be interesting to quantify how this effected the school and the whole area of Ngarenanyuki.

The old school was built from timber and the weatherboards were treated with waste engine oil. During the dry season dust clung and settled on everything. The administration block was cooler and built with concrete blocks.

The Headmaster was the elder of the Somi brothers, we knew the younger brother, whose name we didn't know at the time so we called him 'Bwana Tie' as he was always smartly dressed and wore a tie. Actually the name stuck as far as we were concerned.

The elder brother eventually became Headmaster at Leguruki Secondary School and Bwana Tie [James] became Headmaster at Ngarenanyuki Secondary School.

As an introduction to our first seminar at the school, the the Headmaster introduced us using English, but a direct translation from Kiswahili which was very polite. Unexpected but nice to hear.

The students took part in the seminars and were very happy learn what we had to offer. We carried out a planting programme there with some success.

Later, Mwl Mashoya who we knew as Deputy Head of Makumira Secondary School became Headmaster of Ngarenanyuki. We liked this Mashoya and visited his home place on the slopes of Mt.Kilimanjaro - therefore he was of the Chugga tribe.

There was no need for us to become involved in assistance programmes for the school because they were receiving good assistance through the work of a German Pastor who seemed to have access to funding from Germany. This developed the school in a very positive way.  

During Mwl Mashoya's time at the school, we supplied trees for planting throughout the school area and carried out environmental seminars.

There was some cloud or other as Mwl Mashoya was replaced by James Somi which I put down to internal politics and I like to distance myself from politics.

Somi though has been a success at the school and he asked us to assist in the establishment of a tree nursery at the school which we were able to do.

I think the students at Ngarenanyuki are well-grounded.

A seminar in one of the timber classrooms. The gaps between the boards can be an advantage during the warm season but causes a problem with dust when the wind blows.

A demonstration of the planting technique. This was during the dry season and I was planting into dust! However by adding dry cow manure to increase the organic content has the effect of holding moisture and because there is water available at the school, artificial watering is not a problem - as long as time is allocated to the task.

This young fellow planted a Loquat tree in the prepared hole. I used to buy Loquat fruits at Lushoto and then give the fruit to people around Makumira who returned the seed to me. The trees were then grown in the Makumira nursery.

Quite a bit has gone into the production of these seedlings.

The followup to all planting is to make sure moisture levels are adequate. The porous, sandy soil at Ngarenanyuki loses water quite quickly.

At this time each tree was given perhaps 10 litres of water, which is a good start.

Clearing vacant ground to establish the school tree nursery.
It was a good site, under trees which provides adequate shade.
The students removed the rough vegetation and leveled the site.

Once cleared, some measurement was required to create an area that was a rectangle. The shape does not matter two hoots to the trees or to nursery production. It is good though because it is rare that students have a practical opportunity to use geometry.

There is a small skill in cutting the polythene tubing to size - again it is a practical exercise of mathematics. The student wanted to actually understand the principles of what they were doing.

The mixing and sieving of soil is an important part of the process. Oh sure it is ok to just use soil and fill the pot, but making good mix without lumps makes the soil better to work with and always produces a better plant.

And then there is the filling of pots. Remember that the pots are made from polythene tubing, so there is no bottom to the pot. This means that the pot must be packed with soil properly, so that when it is lifted or carried, soil does not fall out. On the other hand, 'plants will not grow in bricks' - in other words, the soil should not be packed too tightly.